


and take me home (forever and ever)

by makeitbetter



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: M/M, a lot of fluff garbage and nothing else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21609550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeitbetter/pseuds/makeitbetter
Summary: at eight in the morning, number twenty comes alive as paul sits at the breakfast table with a smile bigger than the city itself./(or: they're in love, that's all i really have to offer here)
Relationships: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Comments: 7
Kudos: 80





	and take me home (forever and ever)

**Author's Note:**

> i guess pretentious waffle about times of day is my brand now?? 
> 
> this is a mess, but so are they, and i love them. title is from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvUAzpn48xA) song.

_**\- sunrise** _

at five in the morning, forthlin road is quiet and paul sleeps like he’s dead to the world.

maybe john would too, if sleep had ever managed to find him. instead, he’s sitting up against the wall, watching a room that’s caught against a backdrop of an early morning that casts dim light over paul’s face, like he’s a chalk drawing that’s been faded and smudged around the edges.

so, perhaps, he thinks, it’s not the worst trade in the world.

at half past six, as john’s still awake, the sunrise explodes across the sky above and floods the room with hues of yellow. paul’s features are washed with shades of gold, soft in sleep, and john knows he isn’t going to waste a single second by looking away.

_**\- daybreak** _

at eight in the morning, number twenty comes alive as paul sits at the breakfast table with a smile bigger than the city itself. john is permitted to sit there too, sampling mike’s cooking and listening to jim grumbling as he reads the morning paper, and perhaps he should be worried about how natural and _normal_ it all feels - it’s been his experience that finding this kind of normality means that something is going to go wrong, somehow, someday.

but then, every so often, paul meets his gaze from the seat opposite and flashes a secret kind of smile behind his mug of tea, one that’s just for john, and there’s a dangerous flicker of hope in his chest that this will be the one exception to that rule.

he’s always been sure of paul, after all.

_**\- midday** _

at half past twelve in the afternoon, they’re sitting in the garden, sprawled across the grass with their guitars, and paul’s brow is furrowed in concentration as he taps his pen against his notepad, a rhythm he’s trying to catch up to, his bottom lip caught between his teeth.

john’s supposed to be working on it with him - actually, he’s just stopped for a snack break - but he’s awfully distracted, distracted in a way that only seems to happen when his best mate is around. there’s nothing special about today itself - it’s the same as any other day; john’s had twenty years of them - but any artist knows that natural lighting makes everything look good, and it looks good on paul.

( _everything_ looks good on paul. no wonder he’s always distracted. who wouldn’t be?)

in the end, john breaks his bar of chocolate into two and drops one half of it in paul’s lap, and the smile he gets in response - that same secret smile as before, but brighter now, out in the open - is better than any handful of lyrics he could come up with. 

_**\- postmeridian** _

at three in the afternoon, paul is painted the same shade of afternoon sun as pete best’s garage, strumming his guitar to the tune of _come go with me_ and laughing at one of george’s stupid jokes like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. the concentration from earlier, the one observed by the midday sun, hasn’t gone, john thinks - rather, it’s shifted into something else, a new kind of energy. it’s a subtle kind of shift, perhaps one that no one else has noticed, but john spends so much time alone with paul that maybe it’s inevitable that he’s become aware of all these things.

not that he minds, not really. not when all he can see is paul, paul, _paul_.

(at five in the afternoon, paul looks at him too.)

they leave pete’s together, guitars on their backs and a cigarette being passed back and forth as they head in the direction of forthlin road. all of paul’s earlier energy is slipping away, replaced with something quieter, more contemplative, and eventually he gives up the pretence that the cigarette offers and laces their fingers together instead.

(even though they’re still out in the open, john lets him do it anyway - he would be a fool not to.)

_**\- sunset** _

at eight in the evening, paul opens his bedroom curtains and watches the sun slipping away over the city, bathing it in pink and orange. john stands beside him, smokes another cigarette and watches paul more than he watches the view, too caught on the way the shadows dance on his face. it’s the quietest they’ve been all day, content to fill the silence with the sounds of liverpool going home for the day, drifting through the open window.

when paul finally catches john’s gaze, he smiles, the last of the sunlight reflected in his face.

“what?” he says, the first thing he’s said in what feels like hours, and john simply tosses the cigarette out of the window and leans over to kiss him as they fall into darkness.

_**\- nightfall** _

at eleven at night, forthlin road is quiet and paul sleeps like he’s dead to the world.

john’s hand is wrapped firmly in his, and john wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
